For the past few weeks, I’ve been writing about different ways that you can fit in more reading, from making the actual time for it to accessing books more affordably. But what if you’re in a reading rut? What if you haven’t regularly read for a long time?

I’ve been there. I have two degrees, which meant for the better part of 7 years, all of the reading that I did was required. It left little room for reading for enjoyment, and in fact, solidified a relationship between books and work in my head that was hard for me to break down.

It wasn’t until I’d been out of school for a good 4 years that I casually picked up my first fiction book in almost a decade. Since then, I haven’t been able to stop.
There are a few things that contributed to my ability to shift my view of reading and start enjoying it again. If you’ve been out of reading or in a long-term slump, here are the things that helped me to rediscover my enjoyment of books in a whole new way:

1) Pick something you want to read, not something you think you should be reading

After so many years in an academic setting, reading had become synonymous with learning. I felt like if I was picking a book up, I needed to be getting some kind of skill or enlightenment or something tangibly valuable.
This is categorically untrue.

What helped me read consistently again was picking up books that I enjoyed. While I still read some non-fiction, self-help, and other educational books, the overwhelming majority of what I read is just entertaining fiction. Sometimes that means embarrassingly spicy fantasy novels, and sometimes that means a thought-provoking lit fic, but it always, always is a book I chose for the simple fact that I thought it would be something I’d like. This has made all the difference for me and has allowed me to read voraciously for the past two years.

2) Go easy on yourself—be happy with how much (or how little) you’re able to read, and let it be enough

I know several people who aren’t major readers and struggle to make it through a book. I often hear how hard it is for them to find the time to read, how it always ends up on the back burner, and how frustrated they are that this is the case.

There’s nothing wrong with moving through a book slowly, or not having a lot of time. It’s easy to let that frustration take over and not end up reading at all, but really, it doesn’t matter how long a book takes you. It’s not a race. All that matters is that when you do read, you enjoy it. If you just focus on that and pick books that you enjoy when you do have the chance to read, then it’s enough to continue to build the habit.

3) Consider alternative formats, like audiobooks or ebooks

If you haven’t read for a while, and the idea of picking up and starting a physical book from the beginning is daunting, consider trying ebooks or audiobooks.

For ebooks, I find that I’m less focused on the sheer quantity of pages I have left in the book. I can just enjoy the screens and flip through at my own pace, with the text at a size that makes it easy and flowy.

For audiobooks, I often listen during times when I have to be doing something that doesn’t take a lot of brain power, like cleaning or running errands. I need to be doing these things anyway, so listening to a book at the same time allows me to take in a new book while also accomplishing what I need to throughout my day.

Either format can be a great alternative to needing to dedicate the time and space to sitting down with a physical book and might help you jump back into the habit more easily.

4) Re-read a book that you loved before

While I like to say that ACOTAR was what got me back into reading, I will say that before I started heavily reading again in 2021, each year I’d reread at least one series that I had loved in the past. My comfort series were Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, so each year, I’d dust off my Kindle and start from the beginning so that I could get lost in the worlds that I’d grown to love so much.

If you haven’t read in a long time, there’s no rule saying that you need to start something brand new. Pick up something you know you love and let it give you the momentum to get back into the habit of reading. From there, you’ll have built a baseline of where and when you like to read, and you can grab a new one when you feel you’re ready.

5) Leverage recommendations online or on bookstagram

When I finished reading ACOTAR in 2021, all that I wanted was to read more books like it. I spent a lot of time aimlessly wandering Chapters looking to replicate my interest with no context before I looked to the internet and, more specifically, to Instagram for inspiration.

The book corner of Instagram lovingly referred to as Bookstagram is a wonderful community of readers who are always keen to provide recommendations and hype up well-deserved books. If you know the genre or type of books that you like to read, try searching hashtags or accounts that create content that’s related. You’ll inevitably fall into a rabbit hole of recommendations and flat lays that are sure to inspire you.

If Instagram isn’t your thing, literally try Googling “books like…” and often, that’s enough to get a whole slew of recommendations that might pique your interest. Once you have some in mind, it’s much easier to buy or source new books that have a higher likelihood of holding your attention.

There are a lot of different ways that you can try to get back into reading, but if there’s one critical thing, it’s simply finding something that you’ll enjoy. Despite what we sometimes learn through work and school, reading can be so much fun. Find what brings you joy, and follow it for as long as you can.